Photokina Special: The Kars of KölnBy
Mike Pasini, The Imaging Resource(Friday, September 29, 2006 - 04:37 EDT)It's Friday already here in Germany and we're off to the Koelnmesse again -- but we'll leave you with a little Web gallery of some local color for auto enthusiasts....Big city, small cars. But in Cologne, small cars are really small cars. The diminutive Smart cars can be parked sideways and are very popular. There's even a quite sporty version. But on our way to the tram, we also saw a sleek Alfa Romeo and a venerable Deux Chevaux. And those limos are all Audis.

Bikes are also popular here (well, it's flat, for one thing and gas is more expensive than inkjet cartridges, or so it seems). The sidewalks have bike lanes marked on them and the crossing lights have bike signals.

To make streets work with bikes, small cars and limos (not to mention trams and buses), it takes a certain civility on the road. And we've seen much more of that here than we're accustomed to seeing. We'll miss it.

Look both ways at our Web Gallery before you catch up with our coverage.

(Shots taken with either a Nikon 990 or Canon A700 IS. Can you guess which is which?)